Monthly Archives: August 2012

After reading the last comment on this article—from a (I presume) lady convinced she’s skinny-fat at 5’1″ and 127 lbs—it really hits me how VERY dysfunctional most women’s relationships with their bodies are. As someone with 30 lbs (once 40!) on her, and yet still widely considered skinny (lol, oxymoron)—I am perplexed. Are we really THAT obsessed with being able to fit into the kids’ clothing selections that we’re willing to put ourselves through hell without actually knowing our actual health level?

I understand the point of the article. After receiving my numbers I am aware that I am skinny-fat: I have elevated cholesterol. My triglycerides—well, let’s not go there, for dint of dodging nightmares. About the only numbers that came out good were iron count and glucose—after about a decade, my hypoglycemia is under control.

But so many are missing the point entirely, taking this in the direction that leads to so-called thinspiration—aiming to get thin at all costs, even those who are already svelte.

Being single, I normally wind up doing things like going out on my own to have some fun—and while there are people out there who think that this sort of thing is exceedingly sad, there are others who find nothing strange about it—in fact, they revel in it.

Something that falls into this category is eating out at restaurants. I know a few people who have a borderline phobia about going out to eat by themselves, and therefore refuse to do it.

I’m not one of those people.

In fact, I often enjoy my food more if I’m not eating with someone else. I love to go out and treat myself to some delicious yummy-yummies, and I have a few favorite places that I go to for this.

Fitz’s: Located in the loop, Fitz’s makes one mean bison burger. I don’t get out there often enough—in fact, the last time was right before the…unpleasantness. But I plan on making a return. They also brew their own root beers and other sodas (so if you were wondering, yes, it IS that Fitz’s). You haven’t had a good root beer until you’ve had a fresh Fitz’s. The flavor’s so strong, your tongue goes a bit numb from it.

Wasabi: A sushi bar that I first went to for a friend’s birthday. Their futomaki rolls are to die for: the tamagoyaki is sweetened perfectly and light and fluffy. Their plum tea is also amazing, and I don’t mind that it costs $2 a glass, not for THAT delicious taste.

I don’t get out much, but when I do get out, it is usually to go to the local bookstore.

Once, my bookstore of choice was Borders. I didn’t frequent Barnes and Noble as often because I felt like they were just an upstart trying to poach people from Borders—also, I liked Borders’s coffee better. It’s cold brew, and easier on my poor stomach.

I was at work when I heard that Borders was going out of business. Stunned, I got stuck as I tried to finish my work that day, wondering what I was going to do after I lost my usual spot.

The answer was simple enough—go to Barnes and Noble instead. So I did.

Even though I was picky about where I went, the fact remained that one of my favorite places to go to unwind remained the closest bookstore to my home. (Well, the closest non-Christian bookstore. There’s like six of them in a twelve-mile radius of here.) Normally I didn’t really do much besides wander the aisles, looking at titles before buying one, taking my purchase to the café area, and then reading while I drank a Jones soda or something. It is without the jarring quiet that can sometimes befall a library, but quiet enough to be able to easily concentrate on what you are reading. Or eating. Or wandering the aisles looking for.

I know I own a pair of ereaders, but even so, I like to unwind there. For one, my device lets me read a full book without buying for an hour. It’s a nice way to unwind, and so I go as often as I can.

You see Theo, one of those medicines that I’m taking has had the unfortunate side effect of attaching a rocket-fueled supersonic jet with a tether onto my cholesterol numbers. My good cholesterol is…well, calling it ‘lousy’ would be a compliment. My LDL is quite high!

But the problem is you DON’T want LDL to be high! CRAP.

I was at work preparing for another trip to the doctor when my Twitter alert tone goes off—Chuck Wendig (If you don’t already know who he is I demand you slide your way over HERE for edification. Warning: Chuck doesn’t know the meaning of the word “worksafe,” which I love) has retweeted a video.

This video. And I almost forgot: this isn’t worksafe, either.

One thing for certain, I realized that I’m definitely not an isolated case—even if the conditions under which my high cholesterol developed are fairly uncommon (Pill side effects! WHOO!) and that I should SUCK IT UP and just do what I’m supposed to do.

Part of my absence is because, indirectly, of the Cholesterol Conundrum. I’ve had to alter my eating patterns drastically—

You know what? Let’s not sugarcoat it. I am officially on a diet. (Incidentally if it WAS sugarcoated I wouldn’t be allowed to eat it.) It’s involved a slow reversion to the way I ate in high school: organic damn-near-everything, the kind of buttery spread where it helps maintain cholesterol levels when they hit ‘decent,’ non-fat, non-lactose cheese type product to go on top of my sandwiches, little 100-calorie whole grain multigrain bread thingies. If I’m lucky, I can find the workout tapes I had on DVD format. If not, well, there are other sources to find that material.

I won’t lie: even though at first bite I realized how much I missed my Boca burgers and Chik’n sandwiches, my body’s giving me one hell of a time during the transition. I’ve been tired and listless a lot—partly due to last week’s killer migraine, and partly because I’m coming up on a solid week with severely-diminished fat intake. In order to help me watch my cholesterol, I installed a food diary app so I could track everything that goes into my gullet.

…I was surprised at how much I can eat in a sitting now that I have to hold myself accountable for every single morsel. I mean, I’m easily eating half of what I was now that I have to record it all. It’s weird. Finding out that I CAN survive on half my usual amount of food…makes me realize how much I’ve been binge eating recently. Bad day? Bag of fries. Good day? Bag of fries and a pizza. (Not a slice. A whole pizza.) Got insulted by a co-worker? PWN her by ‘forgetting’ to include her in the mass text about fresh linens being available and then ask if her phone’s set to block until she remembers that, much like insulting your healer in an instance, insulting your laundry lady will leave you in BAD SHAPE.

Something tells me that this month of dieting will be one hell of a misadventure.

I–and 100 Things–will return by Friday at the latest. Arguing with my postdrome-migraine head didn’t go as well as it could have, and now I’m sitting on edge to make sure that I survive the week without another one.

This wasn’t always a candidate for the answer. I grew up in a situation where I’d alternately be begging to go home and then the next day I’d want to be anywhere but. I still bear the marks of that time, but this is a lighter day, a brighter time, and I’m not going to put a damper on the day by going back there.

My job is an exhausting one, and by the end of the day there is nothing more that I’d like to do than just go home and flop over onto the side of the bed (and sometimes I don’t even get that far, as tired as I get after a shift of hauling laundry, making beds, and generally rendering a portion of the hotel I work at presentable and rentable for the guests). I live on my own, which means that everything that has to be done has to be done by me—I get to do MORE housekeeping, my own cooking, and the like.

But that means I get to do my own housekeeping and my own cooking and the like. 🙂

I love not having to answer to other people’s whims when it comes to doing things that I want—you have no idea how much I danced around when I found out that I got this place for myself and wouldn’t have to deal with the peanut gallery anytime that I wanted to eat something that wasn’t—well, let’s just say that my tastes in food can run a bit underground, and having to listen to family members insisting that my taste in food is strange and that “we” didn’t eat such things because that wasn’t part of our heritage? That got old quick.

You may have noticed that I seem to mention food a lot in these posts. Well, to be fair, I do like food. I’m a 167lb woman, tiny in some places and bigger in others, and because of my metabolism I had to deal with the problem of eating enough in a day to make sure that I didn’t just drop off to the point of turning around and vanishing.

First, I find out that my immunity is located just barely on the right side of “properly functioning” and so we’re mot worried.

Second, I find out that I have high cholesterol.

Wait, what?

Yep I got high cholesterol. Well technically, if we’re being totally honest, I have borderline high cholesterol. But it’s FOUR LOUSY POINTS off from being high on the chart, so yeah, we’re operating on the assumption that we’re in ‘high’ mode. I’ve got to completely overhaul how I eat, and it’s in my best interests to get back to working out.

I can’t cut down on the meat as much as I’d like because I need the protein to rebuild my bum leg. So I’ve got to do more exercise, cut down on the pizza cheese bread, and I’ve begun taking red yeast rice to help knock it back down.